News: updated Apple TV, Intuos 5, USB 3, and more!

Apple announced two things to do with the Apple TV earlier this morning. The first item was updated hardware — there's a new model of Apple TV which supports 1080p, just as predicted, along with the ability to stream movies from iCloud. Availability will be March 16th at a price of US$99, with New Zealand pricing to be announced shortly (the NZ Store was still down at time of writing). The second item was an updated interface: all the icons on the new Apple TV interface are now rectangles, and it looks pretty nice — what's more, the new interface will be rolling out to current Apple TVs soon. Wacom introduced the Intuos 5 graphics tablet just last week, and Macworld has a review. Working with a graphics tablet is all about the feel, and the iPad does a very good job of that — and going by the Macworld review, it looks as though the Intuos 5 does a pretty good job, too.

HighPoint has released an add-in card for the Mac Pro which adds USB 3 to your machine. Their Rocket U is a PCI Express card, and it comes with four USB 3.0 ports. Thunderbolt adoption might not have reached the levels we were kind of expecting it to, but USB 3.0 is a good compromise for now.

OS X Daily points out a few Mac maintenance tips some of us may have forgotten. Basically, it comes down to staying up to date, and keeping your Mac backed up.